Like other newspapers, we have called on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford to step down. In light of this week’s fresh allegations (some of which the Mayor has admitted are well-founded), we repeat this call. Rob Ford is unfit to hold any sort of public office, much less the mayoralty of Canada’s largest city.

Many of the pundits who have called for Mr. Ford to resign have steeped their pleas in a more-in-pity-than-anger tone. The Mayor plainly is plagued by a variety of profound personal problems. He does not seem to enjoy a happy life: One of the claims made in the largely unredacted police document released this week is that he repeatedly called a staff member, crying and unhinged, from his father’s gravesite. As with many binge drinkers and illegal drug users, his self-destructive indulgences likely are an effort at emotional self-medication. Clearly, the man should get help.

But this Dr. Phil approach to Rob Ford only takes us so far. Lots of people have expressed concern about his reckless lifestyle — including, reportedly, various city hall staffers (some of whom reportedly were dismissed for their efforts). By all appearances, the Mayor — enabled by equally self-deluded family enablers — simply has dismissed this advice as a disguised form of political criticism. As with all addicts, there comes a point in time when the abused bystander (in this case, the city itself) must move on from helping the addict, to protecting oneself from his toxic presence.

The word “protect” is the correct one, because the most recent revelations about Mr. Ford indicate that his actions have not just put his own health at risk, but that of others as well. This week, for instance, Mr. Ford confessed to drunk driving — a crime that kills over 1,000 Canadians every year. It is not necessary to recite here the many lurid details reported by staffers and former staffers in regard to Mr. Ford’s binge-drinking habits. (By at least one report, Mr. Ford doesn’t just drink before driving — he actually drinks while driving.) The idea that he would endanger the residents of the city he says he “loves” by hitting a vodka mickey before (or while) taking the wheel shows that he lacks the judgment required of any elected official.

Related

Nor is this the only aspect of the Mayor’s personal behaviour that directly touches on questions of public safety. Many Torontonians were outraged by the fact that their Mayor is an admitted illegal drug user. But what is more outrageous are the after-the-fact actions that emerged from that usage: For months, Mr. Ford’s closest operative and confidante was Alexander Lisi, who stands accused of a criminal-extortion plot to retrieve a cell phone video of Mr. Ford smoking from a crack pipe in the company of notorious Toronto gang members. Various characters involved in this drama have been beaten and, in at least one case, killed. Mr. Ford currently does not stand accused of having a legally provable role in these events. But his relationship with Mr. Lisi (they exchanged 349 phone calls in the space of 44 days following media reports of the crack video’s existence), a known lowlife and former criminal convict, is thoroughly appalling.

Space does not permit a recitation of all of the other allegations that came to light in the recently released court documents — including accusations of vile racist and homophobic commentary, vulgar abuse toward staff members and profane sexual references. Although many of the claims made about Mr. Ford’s behaviour have not been proven, the fact that he lied to his constituents about smoking crack for so long has sullied his reputation in the minds of many Torontonians. His refusal to truly take responsibility for his actions by stepping aside is a slap in the face to the city’s voters.

The fact that Mr. Ford is getting his 15 minutes of fame on late-night talk shows and in the international media makes it tempting to dismiss the man as a sort of surreal reality show unto himself. (His use of unprintable sexual slang at city hall on Thursday, and the bizarre context in which he used his wife as a camera prop during Thursday’s daily media circus, certainly added a touch of reality TV trash to the proceedings.) But it’s important to remember that this man is not some fictional construct: He is a public servant, disgracing the city he purportedly leads.

The travesty of his mayoralty must end, now, with his resignation. If he refuses, more drastic measures may be warranted.

We are hesitant to call on the provincial government, which itself is facing a criminal investigation, to step in and unseat a democratically elected mayor. The proper remedy would be to introduce recall legislation, so the voters can decide Mr. Ford’s fate. Without it, it’s hard to see any alternative to the province getting involved, if Mr. Ford refuses to leave on his own.

If you were to compare Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, or three suspended senators in Ottawa, to literary or cinematic characters, which characters would you choose? Letter writers this week provided some suggestions, in notes that either denounced or supported one of these embattled politicians.

“Finally, The Three Musketeers of the Senate — Senators Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Mike Duffy — are suspended,” wrote Barry Bloch. “The motto of Alexander Dumas’ heroes, ‘All for one, one for all,’ fails miserably with all of these court jesters.”

An even more famous author, William Shakespeare, provided the context for two other letters about Mr. Ford.

“As a literate Englishwoman brought up believing that the Bard was always right, it hurts to discover that he was sometimes wrong,” wrote Janet Fridman. “Caesar’s advice, ‘Let me have men about me that are fat,’ does not seem so wise in the current political crises.”

“The Rob Ford affair has become a modern day Shakespearean tragi-comedy, where Mr. Ford is the synthesis of all the vile and comedic characters rolled into one vulgar and despicable protagonist,” added Kanti Makan. He then referenced a British parliamentarian of (more or less) the same era as the Bard. “To summarize the words of Oliver Cromwell, Rob Ford has “dishonoured his office by contempt of all virtue and defiled it by practice of every vice … elected by the people to redress grievances, he himself has become the greater grievance … he has become intolerably odious and in the name of God, he must go.”

This letter writer made reference to an oft-quoted quip from Oscar Wilde, when commenting on the Toronto Mayor.

“As to the ongoing media feeding frenzy regarding Mayor Rob Ford’s alleged drug proclivities, his rising personal approval rating seems to validate a thought expressed by The Picture of Dorian Gray‘s titular character,” wrote E.W. Bopp. “And that is: ‘The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.’”

In another letter concerning the “he said/she said” accusations being exchanged between the three senators and the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr. Bopp referenced the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke.

“What we’ve got here is (a) failure to communicate,” noted Mr. Bopp. He was unclear, though, on which character from the film he was referencing, as both the young prisoner (played by Paul Newman) and the prison captain (Strother Martin) uttered that phrase.

This reader took issue with how columnist Christie Blatchford, in her Wednesday column titled, “Is the Ford boil lanced?,” attempted to portray Toronto Mayor Rob Ford as a character in a popular William Golding book.

“Christie Blatchford makes a strange comparison between Mayor Ford and Piggy, a character in Lord of the Flies,” wrote Glenda Bocknek. “Most of the boys, shipwrecked on the island, gradually become savages, taunting Piggy, an outsider, because he wants law and order to prevail. That is why the tribe turns on him. Mayor Ford may be a piggy, but he is no Piggy — he is a liar, a lawbreaker. Piggy is an honest, principled boy who knows that rules are necessary, and that everyone should obey them.”

In response to a complaint from another reader about her reference to the Golding character, Ms. Blatchford explained her reasoning.

“I re-read Lord of the Flies during the four-hour interval between the Mayor’s first confession yesterday and the later press conference,” she told this reader. “You’re correct that Piggy was gentle and intellectual, and Mr. Ford is neither particularly. But that wasn’t the focus of my clumsy comparison — it was rather with the mob that is attempting to bring him down, and the shrilling of the pack. That, too, has been a significant feature of this long and sorry tale.”

Comparisons to Star Wars characters close out this column.

“I grieve for the people of Toronto,” wrote Roger Jones. “If Rob Ford goes down, who will protect them from the tax and spend left-wing councillors? I would vote for Jabba the Hutt if he would stop the waste of taxpayers’ money.”

“Christie Blatchford is as right (and shrewd and funny) as usual when she says we’re not ‘shamed’ by Rob Ford,” added Gena K. Gorrell. “The people who should be hiding their red faces are the tax-and-spend profligates who drove us to the point where we’d have voted for Jar Jar Binks, if only he’d stop the gravy train.”

National Post

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]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/week-in-letters-readers-resort-to-literary-references-to-describe-the-rob-ford-debacle/feed/0stdToronto Mayor Rob Ford listens to a caller during his Newstalk 1010 radio program he co-hosts with his brother councillor Doug Ford in Toronto on Sunday November 3, 2013. During the program he apologized for his behaviour including his alcohol consumption but maintains he will run in the next election.Today's letters: Rob Ford the wrong man to honour the fallen on Remembrance Dayhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-rob-ford-the-wrong-man-to-honour-the-fallen-on-nov-11
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-rob-ford-the-wrong-man-to-honour-the-fallen-on-nov-11#commentsSat, 09 Nov 2013 06:00:09 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=135479

According to the program on the Lest We Forget website for the Remembrance Day ceremonies planned for Monday at Old City Hall in Toronto, the key address is to be given by Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. The very least that we owe our fallen servicemen and women, and our living veterans, is respect. Mr. Ford has lost all claim to our respect, and it is an insult to those fallen servicemen and women, and a particular affront to the veterans in attendance, to give him any official role in this ceremony. If this is allowed, more attention will be paid to his presence than to the reason for the ceremony.

Mary Hofstetter, Toronto.

We were just kids in 1942

There were a dozen boys in the 1942 graduating class of my small prairie high school; we all volunteered for service in the Second World War. Four were to die, including my best friend and a boy with whom I once shared a double desk; he was killed on the war’s second last day. On VE (Victory in Europe) Day, his parents rejoiced at his survival only to receive the dreaded telegram to the contrary several days later. Far from being war lovers, we were just ordinary kids. We only wanted to live and let live, love and be loved and be free to pursue our dreams. Four of my classmate did not get that chance.

As perhaps the last survivor of my class, I speak for the fallen in avowing that they gave their lives for all Canadians. You are the inheritors of the fallen’s gift of freedom as much as are my own grandchildren. So on Remembrance Day, pause to give a moment’s thanks to those who, in falling, made it possible for you to pursue your star. And try to live your lives for the principles for which they gave theirs – duty, commitment, love and honour. Not only will this repay your debt to the brave fallen but the world itself will be a better place because of it.

Celyn Dufay should delve deeper into history than Matt Gurney suggested. In the Great War 1914-18, the colour white was had a very different meaning to “peace.” In a time when men, as matter of course, went to war for their country, those who did not, using the excuse that they were “conscientious objectors,” were given white feathers, and many became stretcher-bearers or worked in munitions. My poppy will always be red, and I will always remember on Nov. 11, even as I wish for peace, which has always been symbolized by a white dove. Perchance Celyn Dufay might further the use of that recognized symbol rather than plagiarize the Legion’s equally well-known red symbol?

Nicholas Brooks, Toronto.

Media’s credibility falls with Rob Ford’s

Christie Blatchford is absolutely right to say that the news gathering landscape has just been redefined in Canada. The race to the bottom may gain more momentum as it takes just one paper to cross that line, to validate the idea that any story can be purchased with dignity and the rest will follow. And there is no dignity in such a thing at all. As to the matter of our Mayor, it is a sad story indeed that this very public and well-lubricated meltdown seems less about the desperate and sad circumstances of substance abuse and the collateral damage that almost always accompanies that journey. Ms. Blatchford’s column is a must read; a truth on a number of levels about how far the mighty can fall and how many can take the ride with them.

Gareth Seltzer, Toronto.

… or maybe not

I am disappointed in Christie Blatchford’s column on the latest Rob Ford video in which the Toronto Mayor stumbles around, calling people liars, and speculating that he can kill an unnamed opponent in 15 minutes. Instead of attempting to put some context to what we just saw, Ms. Blatchford slams the Toronto Star for purchasing the clip. Most sane politicians would have come clean when word of the first video came out, and enrolled in a rehab program. Mr. Ford instead denied he had a problem. Now this video is out, and we can only speculate what is yet to come. Come on, Ms. Blatchford, like Ford, it’s time to face reality, and tell it like it is.

Robert McAuley, Burlington, Ont.

With the exception of Christie Blatchford and few others, the fourth estate would have had Sir John A. Macdonald run out of office in moments. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is afflicted with at least excessive consumption of alcohol, but any physician or cokehead will attest that from the appearance of his nose that he is not a crackhead. Try giving him the space and help he needs — something that the least of men deserve.

Dr. Warren Hindle, Calgary.

I have no interest in Toronto politics. But I would say to the people casting aspersions on Rob Ford: “Let him who has committed no sin, cast the first stone.”

Nick Allen, Sidney, B.C.

The implosion of Rob Ford is the ultimate manifestation of the utter failure of amalgamation on Jan. 1, 1998. The capricious determination of then-premier Mike Harris to implement the megacity, despite overwhelming opposition, has vapourized political accountability. My two terms as a councillor in the old City of Toronto were the high points of my life. The political structure of the old city allowed me to help govern an urban entity that had evolved over many decades to become what the late Peter Ustinov referred to as “New York run by the Swiss.”

I was proud to be part of a city that took its Official Plan seriously. The current chaotic and rampant over-development would never had been allowed. Public participation was facilitated and meaningful and citizen input was genuinely sought and evaluated.

I sense that Toronto is on the verge of a massive seizure. It can no longer sustain, let alone guide, the uncontrolled land use and transportation intensification with its political dysfunctionality. This has come to a head with Mayor Ford. He would never had been elected in the old City of Toronto.

For all Rob Ford’s evident problems with alcohol, obesity and recklessly self-destructive behaviour, one of the more curious aspects of the scandal is the intense moral panic over crack, a drug he has acknowledged using perhaps only once, in a forgotten “drunken stupor.”

Ever since the crack chatter began, Ashok Krishnamurthy, who treats addictions, including crack, at a hospital and a homeless shelter in Toronto, said he has noticed an “unsettled feeling” among his patients, perhaps because it “reminded them of their own stories,” which are typically ignored on the dark margins of society.

Thirty years ago it was different. North America was gripped by fear of this demon drug that seemed to turn men into thieves, women into prostitutes, and children into orphans. “Crack babies” were said to be doomed and the “crack house” became the ultimate image of urban despair.

Today, crack use has settled down into yet another addiction problem, no more terrifying to the culture than OxyContin or crystal meth. But old stereotypes die hard.

But when popular interest fades, “it doesn’t mean that that residual cultural resonance dies with it … And when it gets paired in an unfamiliar way, like with a mayor of a major city, then all of those same fears and all that same cultural baggage comes flooding back in.”

As a “racialized” drug associated with poor, urban, black America, crack conjures scary images that tap every vein of social insecurity.

“We expect that middle-class 40-year-olds from Outremont, [Montreal], will smoke pot every now and then, but we do not expect that white middle-class guys from the suburbs of Toronto will smoke crack. It’s just not part of our cultural script,” said Prof. Moore, an associate professor of law at Carleton University.

As she puts it, crack is a “leper.” Insofar as crack stigma intersects with identity politics, an overweight, middle-aged, white suburban guy gets the worst of it. Mr. Ford can claim no institutional racism, no persecution by biased cops, no historical disadvantage, nor a life of poverty that cut him off from opportunity and doomed him to drug abuse.

Rather, he comes from a rich family in Etobicoke, a leafy inner Toronto suburb, and lives on a riverside park. And so to the smug hipsters at Gawker and the prim moralists at the Toronto Star — and also apparently a vast cross-section of Canadian society — crack use is simply an embarrassment, a freak show.

As stigma of mental illness and addiction takes an ever more-prominent role in research, funding and messaging, it is worth remembering this embarrassment is precisely what stigma is all about. It erases the crucial difference between seeing a user as wicked or diseased, and blurs the lines between blame, shame, empathy and care.

“Society has made its judgment on crack,” said Dr. Krishnamurthy. It is not kind.

Ian Smith/Postmedia News/FileApparently, to a vast cross-section of Canadian society — crack use is simply an embarrassment.

In a column that upends the foundational principle of addiction treatment by announcing Mr. Ford “can’t be saved,” Star columnist Christopher Hume opined in ancient Rome, the mayor “would have been banished, sent into exile and forbidden from returning to the city,” which he called “a sentence worth resurrecting,” unlike, presumably, feeding Christians to lions.

Shame, he wrote, the mayor has such broad support from “suburban Torontonians,” who likewise “see little value in the city, prefer Tim Hortons and choose to drive everywhere.”

Crack, in this analysis, is always someone else’s problem. It is, in the lingo, “other.”

Undercutting all this is a sense if Toronto’s shameless mayor will not ‘fess up to his shame, then the whole city will contort in gleeful embarrassment on his behalf, egged on by international media that started to lose interest almost as fast as they picked up the story. As The Onion aptly put it in a satire of Americans: “Nation Not About to Start Giving A Shit About Canadian Politics.”

Nothing like this greeted U.S. President Barack Obama’s admission he used “a little blow,” meaning cocaine. Nor was Mr. Ford’s defeated rival, George Smitherman, denounced as depraved when he told a gala at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction & Mental Health that for five years he was addicted to what he called “party drugs,” which he did not identify, except as stimulants.

Drug Enforcement AdministrationCrack cocaine

Pharmacologically, crack and cocaine are the same, stimulants derived from the coca plant. Historically, powder cocaine was a drug for the rich, used leisurely indoors. But when California drug dealers started to process it with an alkaloid, commonly baking soda, it became a solid, known as a freebase, and was nicknamed “crack” for the popping sound it makes when smoked.

Crack democratized cocaine and pushed it outdoors to the street corner and alleyway. No longer did you need to chop powder with a razor blade on a mirror. Now, all you need is a lighter and pipe, or even a modified pop can or hollowed-out cigarette. The price plummeted and a drug of the rich became a drug for the poor.

Of course, none of this determines who will abuse it, as Prof. Moore points out, having worked many years with crack users. Fact and stereotype are far apart.

The attraction is deep and dangerous to an addicted mind.

“Most people don’t start smoking crack as the first fuel of the fire,” Dr. Krishnamurthy said. While society frets over the “fuel,” to medicine, “a fire’s a fire.”

In a survey of crack users in Toronto’s Parkdale area, conducted for the Canadian Harm Reduction Network, one user said, “I mean, for those 15 or 30 seconds that you’re actually getting off, there is nothing else. There is no right or wrong. There is no morality. There are no other thoughts in your head. It just blows everything away, so that if you are struggling with some sort of demon or some sort of issue in your life, it takes it away for a short period of time.”

Prof. Moore grew up in Etobicoke, is four years younger than Mr. Ford and ran in the same circles.

“I know that scene,” she said. “There’s a lot of hard drinking, a lot of drug use. That’s Etobicoke.”

It is from that perspective she rejects the simplistic solution of getting him into rehab to treat his addiction, which she called a “handy excuse for much more complicated situations.”

“I don’t buy it,” she said. “I think he’s come out of a culture where this kind of behaviour was completely acceptable, and he’s all of a sudden figuring out that that little world of privileged, white, middle-class Etobicoke is not foolproof and not quite as impenetrable as he thought it was.

“Rehab is not going to solve it because there was an arrogance that we were all brought up to hold on to about our own entitlement and our own invincibility, which to my mind — and I don’t know Rob Ford personally — is a huge part of this story.”

Certainly no citizen would condone what the Rob Ford has confessed to. But the self-righteous braying for his blood — by media, politicians and citizens-turned-morality-police — is unfortunate. Those who take the Bible seriously know that it is our duty to pray for our public officials. If anyone needs a prayer right now, that would be Rob Ford. A dose of encouragement would go a long way also.

Dieter P. Reda, Lead Pastor, Mission Baptist Church, Hamilton, Ont.

Christie Blatchford’s description of the many incompetent councillors who are proposing to sit as judge and jury of Mayor Tob Ford is dead on. How many of them have been on past city councils and did nothing to correct the huge waste of our tax dollars? Toronto is finally taking steps to correct this, thanks to Rob Ford.

In the last three years I have personally found that city hall has become 100% more efficient, with staff there treating taxpayers with respect. It seems that getting drunk, etc., is worse than infidelity. The press has a selective memory. We have had some mayors that I considered a real liability and cost the taxpayers big time with their bad judgment.

Anne Robinson, Toronto.

Some people think Rob Ford has shamed Toronto. Bull feces. Quite the opposite- he has put Toronto in the news and in people’s psyche, and the city can expect a huge surge in tourism this summer. After all, what other city can boast of having a party animal, bon vivant as mayor?

I supported him before the crack crisis, and I support him more now. “Let he without sins cast the first stone,” I say to all his critics. Rob Ford, by being oh so human, has endeared himself to thousands. He is probably so good at his job because he knows how to take a decent “reprieve” from the pressure now and again.

Mayor Ford is sadly deceived if he believes he can control his drinking. There is abundant evidence that he suffers from alcoholism. No alcoholic is capable of drinking “moderately.” The only solution is to take the “pledge,” to join AA and attend meetings on a regular basis, even daily in the beginning. Only through such action will his life come under control, and enable him to resume responsibility for the city of Toronto.

Dr. Mary McKim, London, Ont.

Alcoholism is a mental affliction, not a sin. I have met preachers who over indulged in sacramental wine and got quite tipsy during the service. What matters is “does the alcoholic do his or her job effectually”?

Canada’s best bridge player, the late Shorty Sheardown, was an alcoholic. I should know because I played with him.

George Monckton, London, Ont.

JFK was addicted to painkillers. Bill Clinton smoked marijuana but curiously didn’t inhale. George Bush was a known drug user prior to his presidency. Pierre Trudeau famously questioned “In Canada?” when asked if he had ever toked up, implying that he had done so elsewhere. Justin Trudeau admitted to drug use even as a sitting MP. And now Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has also admitted to drug and alcohol use.

Why does it seem so much more egregious to the left wing media when it’s a Conservative politician involved? But when one of their Liberal darlings are the protagonist, the media takes a “nothing to see here, folks” view.

What happens when a novelist reports the news? Mayor Ford said that he had smoked (past tense) crack, while Stephen Marche said that he smokes (present tense) crack. It brings to mind the Greek saying: “Shoemaker, stick to your last [to what you know]”.

Robert Newman, Kitchener, Ont.

A reality check for Ford Nation

I would rather have someone, left or right, who actually shows up for work. This myth that Rob Ford works hard has been debunked. He was barely working, and although we can forgive a man for his weaknesses, we cannot forgive him for lack of work ethic. Ford Nation needs to realize that Rob Ford was never really the Rob Ford they thought.

John Rogers, Toronto.

Our Napoleon?

Napoleon lived a glorious heroic life as a conqueror and a historic personality. During his times war and preparation for more wars was the business of the day, period. He died poor and at 51. Fast forward and we find ourselves preoccupied with our modern-day Napoleon: Rob Ford. He is waging a war on many fronts: within himself, family, City Hall, Toronto, and provincial and federal governments.

The people of Toronto should be in the streets, demanding his head, figuratively speaking. The City of Toronto is being damaged internationally and looks like a classless, ungoverned city.

Rob Ford of Toronto is no Napoleon. Alas, he is a dangerous narcissist.

Elie Mikhael Nasrallah, Ottawa.

Canadians are seeing red — everywhere

These days we Canadians practically own red, the color both of our embarrassment and the Senate, our plush Upper Chamber for the uppity who’ve been appointed for sober second thought — until they are caught lifting from the public purse. Nonetheless, caught red handed, they keep a sober face. Which is more than can be said for Mayor Rob Ford. We should despair of our color red, were it not for the little poppy, to the rescue on lapels everywhere, reminding us (and reproving us) of the price paid for this land and life of ours and the torch that’s been thrown to hold high.

Bruce Jespersen, Calgary.

We need the Senate, so let’s make it work

I do not support the abolition of the Senate; neither do I support an elected Senate. Once upon a time, I wanted an American style “Triple E” Senate, but over time, I have come to appreciate the wisdom of the Canadian constitutional system, in light of so many deadlocks between the House and Senate in the States.

My ideal would be for senators to sit as independents. The Senate should be a place where Canadians who have made a significant contribution to fields other than politics, who could be included in the national debate as a council of advisors.

The nomination process should involve contributions from the House of Commons and premiers, with the prime minister having a more limited role. Senate expenses could be strictly curtailed.

Canadians are not, in general, fond of politics, politicians, or elections. But we do value our national institutions and heritage. We also place a high value on public service. If it were possible for the Senate to be retained, while depoliticized to an extent, I think it could have tremendous value.

Michael Trolly, Ottawa.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair says, “I’ve yet to hear a single Canadian say they are in favour of keeping the Senate.”

Let me be that person. Canada is simply too big, too fractious, too non-homogeneous, and too prone to elect massive majorities in the lower House, (Borden 1917, Diefenbaker 1958 and Mulroney 1984) to risk not having a bicameral legislature. Without a Senate and its a “sober second thought” role, just imagine how much more power the already too powerful PMO would have.

Almost by definition, federations must be bicameral. Canada is an independent federal state within the Commonwealth in which we’d stand out like a sulky child in contrast to our federal sisters like India, Australia and South Africa if we abolished (as opposed to reformed) our Senate.

Of the 29 member countries of the OECD, 17 are bicameral, including our founders, the U.K. and France, not to mention other “contributing” founders such as Ireland, Italy and the United States.

Our provincial premiers would behave even more like self-important princely potentates if they alone could claim to speak for their regions.

Joseph A. Day, the chair of the Senate finance committee, wrote that there were “misleading claims” in Scott Stinson’s column. Senator Day’s column itself is misleading, as it tackles the question of the Senate’s supposed role in reviewing federal legislation prior to its adoption and providing “sober second thought.”

Senator Day takes issue with Mr. Stinson’s observation that the omnibus budget bill cleared his committee just a week after arriving from the Commons, receiving Royal Assent just a week after that. The senator points out that his committee studied the bill while it was still in the Commons, hearing 67 witnesses. The so-called report Senator Day mentions is a list of witnesses appearing before the committee. On page 2, it states: “The Committee considered all the testimony heard and submissions received but, for brevity’s sake, decided not to summarize all of its work on Bill C-60 in a report.”

So there is no report. Senator Day also says the committee heard 67 witnesses. But 46 of them are federal staffers, including 17 from Finance, detailed to support minister Jim Flaherty’s brief appearance. On June 18, Senator Day convened his committee at 9:36 am, where the majority passed every section of the 125-page act, without amendment. The committee adjourned at 10:14 am.

Sober second thought, indeed. All 38 minutes of it.

I point this out to correct the record, not to lament the fact that our unelected Senate isn’t amending laws passed by the house. Unelected Senators, who may provide good advice or make wise observations, have no place in our modern democracy changing laws that were duly passed by the elected House of Commons.

A gender bias worth tackling

I’m so glad to see that the Swedes have developed a method to ensure politically correct gender standards are met in the film industry. I’m looking forward to when they begin monitoring the content of North American advertising, in which white men, especially fathers, are chronically depicted as bumbling, useless twits. Now there’s a gender bias issue that needs attention.

James McComb, Edmonton.

‘Tiny ass porn’? Not quite right

I love my new Galaxy 4S phone. It has voice recognition, but it’s obviously not attuned to an English accent. I wanted to access my website so I spoke into it, “Tony Aspler.” It directed me to a site called “Tiny ass porn.” Maybe that should be my new Twitter handle.

Rarely do people in other countries care about what happens in Canada. But when Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted Tuesday that he has, in fact, “smoked crack cocaine … probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago,” media outlets around the world were all over the story.

The reason people care about Ford is the same reason they care about Lindsay Lohan getting arrested: Not because the story has any impact on the lives of most people, but because it’s a train wreck, and no matter how bad we feel about slowing down to look at the flaming disaster on the side of the road, none of us can help ourselves.

I’ve heard of people trying to steer their children away from show business — who, after all, would want to see their daughter twerking on TV or spreading her legs in a tabloid. But people still hold up politics as a desirable profession. That “mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president,” as JFK put it, has become a de facto part of the American dream.

The idea that just about any child could grow up to become the most powerful man in the world is great, especially in a world that has traditionally given the nobility a monopoly on power, while leaving the plebeians out in the cold. But parents should be touting the virtues of the 273 self-made billionaires on the Forbes 400 list, rather than the swine we often elect to run our governments.

Related

After months of speculation and the Ford brothers consistently trying to pin the crack scandal on the left-wing media, and even a vengeful police chief, Ford’s final admission came with a caveat: “I wasn’t lying, you didn’t ask the correct question.”

Did Ford forget all the times reporters pointedly asked whether he had ever smoked crack? Of course not. But the political mind can rationalize any lie. Bill Clinton “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” because oral sex is not sex, stupid.

There are a few (now suspended) Canadian senators who can likewise say with a straight face that they did not break any of the Senate’s rules — even after milking their taxpayer-funded expense accounts for all they were worth. In the warped mind of the politician, laws dictate morality, not the other way around. If the rules didn’t say they couldn’t steal, then it’s not stealing, even if they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

These are the people who continually institute laws that dictate how everyone else should live, because in their minds, they know what’s best for the rest of us — even if they don’t follow their own advice. Rob Ford wasn’t responsible for the Ontario government’s distracted driving law, but he certainly didn’t think it applied to him when he was caught reading behind the wheel.

Not only do politicians think of themselves as technocrats who know better than the rest of us, they think they’re worth every penny. The last federal budget gave MPs a 1.6% raise — not out of line with inflation, but it means that a backbench MP will now be making $160,200 per year, or double the median income of average Canadians.

Politicians giving themselves raises is sure to get populist conservatives riled up. But for every one who says the prime minister isn’t worth $320,000 a year, there are many more saying that we need to pay good wages in order to attract top-quality people.

This argument would hold water if we actually saw good public policy coming out of Ottawa, provincial capitals or city halls across the country. It would be a defensible position if our leaders held themselves to a higher moral standard than the rest of us. But all too often, we get lying scumbags who spend our money willy-nilly, force their opinions on everyone else and fail to live up to their own standards.

The fact that Rob Ford smoked crack doesn’t bother me. The fact that he lied about it for months and appears to have been involved in an elaborate cover-up to ensure that the public never got a hold of the video, shows that he has more in common with all the other pols than he does with the people of Toronto.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/jesse-kline-rob-ford-shows-that-politicians-dont-make-good-role-models/feed/0stdRob Ford gives a tour to the children of staff during "take your kids to work day" one day after admitting he smoked crack cocaine.Today's letters: Rob Ford still has his supportershttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-rob-ford-still-has-his-supporters
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-rob-ford-still-has-his-supporters#commentsSat, 02 Nov 2013 05:00:55 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=134610

‎How many hundreds of thousands of dollars has been spent trying to get Toronto Mayor Rob Ford out of office? This would include by lawyers pursuing Municipal Act, election act and libel actions; by journalists dealing with dope-dealing video purveyors and interviewing anonymously anyone within 500 metres of a Ford; by newspapers hiring lawyers to gain access to court and police documents and by the police staking out a petty drug dealer. All this money and we are left with two options: begging Mr. Ford to resign or waiting for the next election and letting voters decide whether he should go. I don’t know who looks more stupid.

Charles Evans, Toronto.

Rob Ford, regardless of any video, has done more for my city than any other politician in my lifetime. If we get a subway and a new relationship with municipal unions, his place in history will be well earned. As for the allegations against him, I hate hard drugs, but don’t believe in throwing people away like garbage. However, if he smokes weed that’s more likely a good thing than not — it’s about time we had a politician who represented us in this way.

Sean McKay, Toronto.

Rob Ford should not be required to step down because he allegedly smoked weed. He should be judged on how well he has performed his job. Winston Churchill was a bottle-a-day man and he also had a big tummy. When president Lincoln was told the General Grant drank too much, he replied, “Find out what brand he drinks and sent a case to my other generals.” If Mayor Ford were a good-looking 45-year-old, would he get better treatment by the press?

G.R. Monckton, London, Ont.

Liona Boyd’s ‘karmic’ reward

I enjoyed reading Jonathan Forani’s well-written feature on me and my new album, The Return … To Canada with Love, but a small error crept in, probably due to my trace of a British accent. The lyric to my song, Living My Life Alone should read, “so is this now my karmic reward?” not ‘comic reward,” as printed.

Jeff Newton, president of Canada’s National Brewers wrote a very compelling argument why the beer should be sold via The Beer Store outlets only in Ontario. I think people would be served even better if all the car brands were pulled together under one, government-run dealership. Imagine the ambiance, service and savings. And why stop there. Basic necessities, such as bread, are currently sold via numerous grocery chains, resulting in price gouging. I guess being a president of a government-protected corporation does not require a basic knowledge of market economy.

Mark Skowronski, Toronto.

Jeff Newton disputes the claim from the Ontario Convenience Stores Association “that small corner stores will have the space or desire to promote small brewery products.”

Living in Ottawa, I periodically drive across the Ottawa River into Gatineau, Que., to visit a small, independent specialty beer store. The owner sells some 100 brands of beer from Quebec’s excellent microbrasseries — as well as a small selection of cured meats, cheeses, and assorted preserves.

I would not expect every corner store to sell dozens of brands of beer, no should they be obliged to. But if someone in Ontario were allowed to recreate my Gatineau specialty store, then so much the better for beer lovers like myself. It insults my intelligence for Mr. Newton to insist that the Stalin-era service provided by his protected, self-interested group is better.

Grant Andrew Dzuba, Ottawa

Canada needs more innovators

Re: Own The Experts, Amit Chakma, Oct. 26.

University rankings are important for university presidents, professors and students, but that is not a problem for Canada. The title of a recent report of the Council of Canadian Academies tells it better: “Paradox Lost: Explaining Canada’s Research Strength and Innovation Weakness.” According to this report, Canada is ranked seventh in the world in terms of publications and sixth in terms of citations. Canada has published more citable documents and received more citations per capita than the United States during the years 1996-2012. However, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada is producing about 1/5 the number of patents of the top performers (Japan, Switzerland and Sweden) and about 1/2 of the OECD average, per million people.

That is a real problem; university rankings are not. The challenge is to convert the outstanding achievements of Canadian research into innovations.

John Vlachopoulos, Burlington, Ont.

The Rand formula is fair for all workers

Tasha Kheiriddin is right about one thing: federal Conservatives indeed have declared an ideological war on unions, but their arguments are all spin and have little or no basis in fact. Mr. Kheriddin repeats the myth that Conservatives like to trot out about the Rand formula. In fact, the formula, developed by Supreme Court Justice Ivan Rand, provides a fair balance between individual liberty (not wanting to join a union) and the basic concept of fairness. Rand’s formula does not require anyone to join the union in their workplace. It does, however, require everyone who benefits from collective bargaining (wages, benefits, protection against unfair treatment at work) to pay dues. Leave it to ethically challenged Conservatives to promote the moral equivalent of dining-and-dashing, getting all the benefits but stiffing your friends with the bill.

Ken Georgetti , president , Canadian Labour Congress, Ottawa.

The Rand formula explicitly provides that workers are not required to join the union. They must, however, pay dues. This is no different from a taxpayer having to pay taxes irrespective of views on whether the tax should be collected or how it is spent. Opposition to the Rand formula has nothing to do with freedom of association; it is union-busting pure and simple, designed to destroy unions and thereby lower labour costs.

This article correctly identifies the value in promoting skilled trades. However, it fails to acknowledge recent steps that have been taken in Ontario to promote the trades as well as address apprenticeship ratios. In fact, for the first time in almost two decades, Ontario apprenticeship ratios have been reviewed and adjusted based on an independent and transparent process.

The recently established Ontario College of Trades is an industry-driven, professional regulatory body that protects the public interest by regulating and promoting the skilled trades. The public can now benefit from a public register that will confirm the credentials and licensing status of all members whether, for example, it is an electrician, plumber or automotive technician.

As well, the college has been actively reaching out to youth at high schools, colleges and other venues to promote the benefits of a career in the skilled trades.

David Tsubouchi, registrar and CEO, Ontario College of Trades, Toronto.

A man arrested in the Project Traveller raids who has received recent media attention for reported connections to an alleged Toronto Mayor Rob Ford crack video is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.

Mohamed Siad, 27, is facing 26 charges including weapons trafficking, cocaine trafficking, marijuana trafficking, conspiracy and unauthorized possession of a firearm. He is scheduled to appear in court at 2201 Finch Ave. West on Wednesday morning via a video linkup from jail.

Chris Samac, manager of court operations with the Ontario Court of Justice confirmed the purpose of Siad’s court appearance is to set a date for a trial, though he said a date may still not be set on Wednesday.

A majority of the people arrested in the June 13 raids in north Etobicoke are also expected to appear in court on Wednesday, Mr. Samac said.

Siad has most recently received media attention for alleged involvement with a video that allegedly shows Mayor Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine. Last week the Toronto Star reported Siad is the man who showed two of their reporters the alleged cellphone video in May.

The Star also reported Siad was stabbed in jail a few days following his arrest and has since been placed in segregation.

Brent Ross, Ministry of Corrections spokesperson, would only confirm that an incident took place at the Toronto Jail on June 15 in which an inmate was injured.

“Given this matter is under investigation by the ministry, it would be inappropriate to provide any further details of the incident,” he said.

He would not discuss the nature of the injury, citing that this it was private health information that he did not have a right to release.

Matthew Sherwood for National PostPolice cruisers sit outside the high rise apartment building at 320 Dixon Road.

Siad’s lawyer, Daniel Brown, also remained tight-lipped on the reported stabbing.

“I can’t get into the details of that unfortunately,” he said. “I’m bound by solicitor client privilege and I can’t discuss the details of my client’s case with a reporter for publication.”

Mr. Brown said his client has not applied for bail and would not be applying for bail on Wednesday.

“It’s certainly not a significant court appearance,” he said. “I don’t think it will be an eventful day.”

Mr. Brown also said he does not intend to continue on as Siad’s lawyer. He would not elaborate on what led to this decision.

He said was unsure if he would be able to attend the Wednesday hearing but that either another lawyer would appear on his behalf or one would come in to take over the case.

A man who allegedly showed a video to journalists that appears to show Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine has reportedly been arrested.

The Toronto Star says that Mohamed Siad, 27, sat in a car parked at an apartment complex on Dixon Road on May 3 and played the alleged video on a cellphone three times.

John Cook, the editor of U.S. website Gawker, who was shown the same video, said Friday that Siad appears to be the same man he met in Toronto, although he could not be certain.

Siad was arrested in June as part of a sweep targeting gang activity, namely the Dixon City Bloods, also known as the Dixon Goonies. Police say the gang centred on their alleged criminal activity around apartment complexes on Dixon Road.

Matthew Sherwood for National PostPolice take a woman into custody from the high rise apartment building at 330 Dixon Road.

He was charged with 14 counts of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, four counts of trafficking cocaine, three counts of participation in a criminal organization as well as four firearm charges.

Siad was stabbed in jail for his alleged role in bringing police attention to gang activity because of the video, the Toronto Sun reported.

Citing sources, the newspaper said Siad tried to get a plea deal by offering to give the video to prosecutors, which they reportedly rejected because they wouldn’t be able to confirm it was Ford smoking crack in the video.

The Star said the Crown attorney on the Project Traveller case would not discuss the Siad case, nor would police, nor Siad’s lawyer, who cited solicitor-client privilege.

The Star has previously identified two other men arrested in the raids as those pictured in a photo appearing to also show Ford with his arm around homicide victim Anthony Smith.

Ford has denied the picture indicates he has ties to drug dealers, saying he takes pictures with a lot of people.

He has also said that he does not use crack cocaine and the alleged video does not exist.

With files from The Canadian Press

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/man-who-showed-journalists-alleged-rob-ford-crack-video-arrested-offered-tape-to-police-for-plea-deal-reports/feed/0stdThis picture of Anthony Smith and Rob Ford was given to Gawker by dealers who allegedly had a crack video featuring Ford.Matthew Sherwood for National PostToday's letters: Are the media being fair to Rob Ford?http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-is-the-media-being-fair-to-rob-ford
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-is-the-media-being-fair-to-rob-ford#commentsTue, 28 May 2013 05:00:38 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=118071

Christie Blatchford is incorrect that “the goalposts of the newspaper business in this country have been moved” in the Rob Ford story. The journalists who reported seeing the alleged crack video were reporting on their first-hand observations. If you see a traffic accident, you don’t need a second source to report that you saw a traffic accident.

The question in this he said/she said story is whether one believes a man with a proven history of lying, or the word of three journalists at two separate news organizations: The two at the Toronto Star have been recognized by the National Post itself for their history of accurate reporting.

Allan Stratton, Toronto.

I was born and raised in Toronto. I am an avid Leafs and Argos fan. I have always spoken of my hometown with pride. How is it possible that an unsubstantiated, vile, defamatory (never mind badly photoshopped) video of the city’s Mayor has become a major news story? What is it about Rob Ford that makes it OK? Is it because he is overweight? Is it because he is Conservative? The media should be ashamed of the way they have whipped this non-story into a frenzy of speculation and innuendo.

Christie Blatchford is spot on, as usual — the real story is the pathetic degradation of the media.

Cartoonist Gary Clement should have added one more panel in summarizing last week’s events. He should have shown a reporter holding up a piece of newsprint with the words, “journalistic integrity, ethics, fair play and high standards,” and a speech bubble saying, “(It’s) going … going … gone.”

Michael Brady, Ottawa.

Clearly, Rob Ford has serious personal issues. Nothing, however excuses the vicious and sustained personal attacks by members of the lunatic left, overly represented in the media. That is why the public should ignore the stories and support the man in his quest to control spending.

I don’t think there is any issue here. There is no proof that Rob Ford was smoking crack. There is no proof the drug dealers sold crack to the Toronto Mayor, and he says the allegations of crack use are ridiculous. Paying drug dealers for a video where nothing “illegal” was done is therefore not wrong — it is just free enterprise. Everything else is left up to the imagination of the viewer

As a former crack addict for three years, I can assure Jesse Kline that if “what you do on your time” involves smoking crack, that will severely affect your “day job.”

The costs of his addictive compulsive behavior are incalculable. Before Mr. Kline decides how drugs affect the user’s mind, he should speak to people who really know.

Colin Brownlee, Toronto.

Queen’s Park has recently cost Ontario taxpayers half-a-billion dollars for gas plant mistakes. The Mayor of Toronto may have been smoking crack cocaine, while saving his taxpayers $88-million by privatizing garbage collection. The answer is obvious. Find out what brand the Mayor is using and require its use by all the denizens of Queen’s Park — our tax bills might then shrink.

Alex Doulis, Toronto.

Are the media honest and accountable? Send us a 75-word response by 6 p.m. EDT on May 30 at letters@nationalpost.com. Responses to be published on June 3.

Hooray for author Bob Plamondon. In the early 1970s, while taking economics at the University Of Alberta, we were required to do a paper on Pierre Trudeau’s economic policies. I remember I wrote unkindly about his deficit financing, which, if I remember correctly, was a staggering $9-billion. Unbelievable at a time when the price of gas was 45¢ a gallon and the price of a house could be had for $35,000. Inflation was running near 8%; mortgage rates were near 10% and Mr. Trudeau had imposed price controls, not seen since the War.

As I recall, I concluded that Mr. Trudeau wanted Canada to be as the Soviet Union: the West and Atlantic provinces should only exist as colonies for the benefit of Central Canada and he saw the North as his personal playground where he could paddle his canoe and contemplate his dream of Canada. And Canada was in for a lot of trouble.

Not surprisingly, my paper was graded as too polemic, and I did not receive a good grade. I feel vindicated upon reading the review of Mr. Plamondon’s book.

Florence Nelson-Smith, Red Deer, Alta.

The National Post came very close to losing a loyal subscriber when I saw a photo of the worst prime minister in Canadian history on your front page on Saturday. But I welcomed both Graeme Hamilton’s story and the balanced review by Kelly McParland of Bob Plamondon’s book, Truth About Trudeau.

Bouquets notwithstanding, Mr. Plamondon should have been more rigorous in his lucubrations concerning the Official Bilingualism Act of 1969. In the preceding election year, Mr. Trudeau had clearly promised that the public service would only be affected to the extent that it would provide French-speakers service in their own language. Shamefully, that promise was broken. Today it is well nigh impossible to get a federal job at virtually all governmental levels unless one is fluent in French and/or has a French-sounding name. So much for the “Just Society” or is it now, the “Justin Society”?

A. John Boehmer, Gatineau, Que.

… or was he?

Savage Trudeau as you will, he remains the lion. One word captures Pierre Trudeau’s political essence — charismatic leadership. Only MacDonald and Laurier join him in that pantheon. Others, at best, managed — competently.

Surveys across the country consistently show that up to 70% of Canadians in every province wants Harper to get rid of the Senate. With all his hot air about Senate reform leading to nowhere in seven years in power, he might as well just listen to the majority of Canadians and do just that.

Steve Norris, Toronto.

It has been said that the ongoing Senate expense scandal is becoming a distraction. I beg to differ. The Senate itself is the distraction that needs to be relegated to the history books of Canada. Believe me, no one will notice when the Senate is gone.

The Letters page has still not sorted out our present Queen Elizabeth’s ancestors. Please, read my lips, Queen Mary — Bloody or not — was not the mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Mary was her grandmother. Mary was George VI’s mother and George VI was our current queen’s father. (Mary was mother-in-law to QEII’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother nee Bowes-Lyons.) So the original letter writer who praised Queen Mary as giving good genes to QEII was quite within his rights to do so. And if you must know, our present queen’s mother-in-law was Princess Alice of Battenberg, the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

And to finish it off, Camilla is QEII’s daughter-in-law and step-mother-in-law to darling Kate.

Got it? Good! Clear as a bell!

Marilyn Baker, Richmond, B.C.

Once upon a time there was a monarch, King George V, who had a wife named Mary (whose courtesy title as consort was Queen Mary). One of their sons became King George VI and one of his daughters became Queen Elizabeth II. Thus the aforementioned ‘Queen’ Mary was grandmother to our current Monarch, not her mother-in-law (who would have been the mother of her spouse, Prince Philip, one Alice (of Battenberg).

We, the Ontario Association of Medical Radiation Sciences (OAMRS), the organization whose members (medical radiation technologists and medical sonographers) are the experts in performing the mammography examinations, applaud Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews for commencing with the replacement of diagnostic imaging (DI) equipment in Ontario. In our view, the Minister has listened to the research evidence provided by the experts in Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) in terms of mammographic equipment. We believe that she has not ignored the cries of experts.

OAMRS, like our radiologist colleagues, has been concerned about not only aging medical equipment, but also about the rapidly evolving and increasing sophistication of DI equipment in Ontario. We have been advocating for a provincial strategic plan to replace and acquire DI and radiation therapy equipment since 2003, as part of modernizing the Healing Arts Radiation Protection Act since before this government came to power. Replacing the provincial mammography equipment is an important first step in our view, and is recognition that women’s health had the potential to be compromised. We do hope the Minister will continue on this path.

Why does your newspaper report only negative articles about Edmonton? There are no less than three violence-related articles on your website involving Alberta’s capital as I write this. Where is the balance? Where is the objectivity? What about our new soon-to-be world-class downtown arena? Or the multi-billion dollar light rail transit infrastructure expansion? Or how about our visionary three-term mayor who has literally reshaped the landscape of this great city, and who has done more than any other mayor before him. Did we forget about the thousands of new residents each month calling Edmonton home — hoping for that Alberta Advantage? What about the fact that Alberta is the economic engine that drives this country. Where are those stories?

Edmonton is not the bloodthirsty, violent capital you so want it to be. Is there violence occurring here? Of course there is, and also in every other city in the world. Edmonton is a safe, friendly, prosperous, and ambitious city that is growing faster than in any time in its proud history. Where are those stories?

Oh Barbara, you of all people should know that it’s not political correctness that’s to blame: it’s the pipeline companies! After all, they’re the ones supporting the oil, sorry, tar sands which causes global warming, which changes our weather, which causes SAD, which makes people feel glum, which makes them want to change Mother’s and Father’s Day. Get it straight, would you?

Tim Harkema, Calgary.

The drawing “Capital” by Viktor Deni (1919) is an excellent declamation of capitalism. There he is, the ‘fat cat” capitalist sitting on his money, about to throw some in the air, ominous looking factories, where workers are being exploited lurking in the background. As Lenin might say, what is to be done?

Jim Gehl, Calgary.

IRS and Obama

Re: Lies, damn lies and the IRS, Charles Krauthammer, May 27.

King Henry II said, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” and a few of his loyal knights took it upon themselves to murder Thomas Becket, the archbishop within the precincts of the cathedral. Even if the White House is not guilty of issuing any direct orders to the Internal Revenue Service to harass the President’s political opponents, Barack Obama is guilty of creating an atmosphere in which such steps would be taken, and like Henry II, he should be made to crawl before the American people to beg forgiveness. Mr. Obama, ably assisted by the vast power of the media, turned his presidency into a cult of personality, gave his “mission” near biblical proportions and turned his opponents into unwashed heretics and deniers whose very existence is a cardinal sin. It is time god-Obama was brought back to Earth.

A convicted felon reminded a Florida courtroom last week of the recipe for making crack cocaine by choosing to wear a sweatshirt covered in drawings of how to make the illegal drug.

Christopher Patterson appeared in the Fort Lauderdale court on Jan. 6 to face charges for the distribution of oxycodone, a painkiller, according to a story posted on The Smoking Gun.

A photo of the sweatshirt, taken by defense attorney Michael D. Weinstein, shows a colourful garment covered in cartoon drawings of spoons, white powder (baking soda, presumably) and an open flame — the necessary items for cooking crack.

“I was absolutely shocked,” Weinstein, who was not representing Patterson, told ABC News. “I see someone charged with trafficking walking up to a judge who’s going to determine your fate wearing a jacket like that. I was just blown away.”

Patterson, 25, and a co-defendant, are accused of arranging to sell 50 oxycodone tablets to an undercover police officer. Patterson, whose sweatshirt also emblazoned the slogan “Stack Paper Say Nothing,” has previous convictions for cocaine possession and is free on a $30,000 bond.

As it awaits a Supreme Court decision on the fate of its downtown drug injection site, Vancouver’s public health authority announced plans for a pilot project to give addicts free crack pipes.

Supporters say it will protect addicts from overdose and diseases such as HIV and bring them into the health-care system. Critics, meanwhile, say programs that emphasize harm reduction over abstinence or treatment are a quick fix for the complicated problem of drug addiction and are part of a broader push to legalize drug use.

“It gives politicians and other people an opportunity to say, ‘look we’re doing something.’ But I don’t think we’re seeing the benefits that were anticipated when a lot of people embraced this approach that emphasizes harm-reduction,” said Tom Stamatakis, head of both Vancouver Police Association and the Canadian Police Association. “I’ve been working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for at least 20 years and I can’t really say that things are much better there than they were 20 years ago.”

Vancouver Coastal Health, which funds the controversial InSite, North America’s only supervised drug injection clinic, said it was looking to launch a pilot project in the fall that would hand out free crack pipes to address a shift in the city’s drug culture away from drug injection and toward crack smoking, said medical health officer Dr. Réka Gustafson.

Health officials already hand out mouthpieces, filters and push sticks for smoking crack. But the users have to supply their own pipes and often use makeshift pipes made by other users or reuse them so much that the glass wears down and explodes. Health officials also hope to stop the spread of diseases like hepatitis C among addicts who share their pipes.

The program is an extension of the city’s harm-reduction programs for drug users, such as needle exchanges, Dr. Gustafson said.

“People have assumed this is some sort of big philosophical change,” she said. “This is a practical change. If you’re going to provide harm-reduction services, then you want to make sure you’re addressing the harms that are occurring. It’s really just knowing that there’s been a shift toward crack cocaine smoking over the past decade in our population, and it doesn’t make sense to provide harm-reduction supplies for injections only.”

Other cities such as Toronto and Winnipeg have been handing out free pipes for years, but in Vancouver officials have instead pushed the federal government unsuccessfully for an exemption from drug laws to operate supervised facilities for crack smokers alongside its injection site. InSite operated legally thanks to an exemption to federal drug laws until Ottawa pulled the plug in 2008, prompting a court challenge that is awaiting a Supreme Court of Canada decision.

Critics of the pilot project say it’s a way around the federal government’s refusal to grant the city a legal exemption and warn it’s part of a broader movement to downplay the harmful effects of drug addiction.

“They’re calling it an experiment, but it’s not an experiment at all,” said David Berner, the B.C.-based executive director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada. “There’s nothing to learn from this and it’s just opening the door wider to the legalization of everything.”

The project puts police in an uncomfortable position, said Mr. Stamatakis, who argues that such programs have taken the spotlight off of badly needed treatment and prevention programs.

“You’ve got an addict saying, ‘I just got this thing from Coastal Health’ and a police officer saying, ‘I’ve got to seize it,’ ” he said. “These kinds of policy decisions are a bit frustrating from a front-line policing perspective because it makes the already difficult work even more challenging.”

Drug-treatment programs don’t work for all addicts, while harm-reduction strategies such as free needles and pipes save lives and help addicts trust health-care professionals, said Walter Cavalieri of the Canadian Harm Reduction Network.

“We need a critical public debate about the efficacy of harm reduction and not succumb to ideological arguments that this is not good and that it is enabling [drug use], which it isn’t,” he said. “Harm reduction will save lives. It will save money. It will improve society.”

Some would-be con men are on the RCMP’s radar for their “black money” scam, in which they try to dupe Regina residents into buying a chemical that will return a dyed black bill to its original state. According to the RCMP, these scallywags say they have thousands of dollars worth of blackened bills beneath a genuine bill dyed black. But those, police say, are really just black construction paper cut to size. While similar cons have been reported in other Western communities, police seem to have pinpointed these guys early — turns out no one in Regina has fallen for the dupe.

London, Ont.

Police in London are bemoaning the rise of the butt dial — that phone call you inadvertently place when your cellphone’s shoved into your back pocket. London’s emergency services are being strained by the increase in non-emergency 911 calls that have skyrocketed now that everyone and their grandmother carries a cellphone with them, officials there say. “This is definitely a major ­concern because it ties up resources,” Staff Sgt. Peter Glen told the London Free Press, adding that the follow-up protocol which confirms the caller is not having an emergency, takes time. Dispatchers get 140 non-emergency calls a day now, and many of them are accidental dials from a cellphone stuck in a pocket, purse or bag. They advise cellphone carriers to lock their phones and warn against programming 911 into speed dial.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/victoria-police-educational-crack-video-raises-eyebrows/feed/1stdSgt. Conor King talks about the process of making crack cocaine at the Victoria Police Department in Victoria, B.C. July 13, 2011Police charge man selling crack out of his hospital roomhttp://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/police-charge-man-selling-crack-out-of-his-hospital-room
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/police-charge-man-selling-crack-out-of-his-hospital-room#commentsFri, 17 Dec 2010 23:55:39 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=38653

A 52-year-old man is facing a string of drug charges after police raided his hospital room and found drugs they believe he was selling to visitors.

The man, who is known to police for past drug offences, had been in William Osler Health Centre to receive treatment for an undisclosed health problem since Saturday when law enforcers learned that crack cocaine was being shuttled in and out of the building.

On Tuesday, police executed a search warrant of his private room and seized a “large quantity of crack cocaine” – enough to make an arrest for possession with the purpose of trafficking.

“Whatever he was in the hospital for wasn’t stopping his entrepreneurship,” said Detective Domenic Sinopoli of 33 Division.

The man remained in hospital and was arrested Friday upon his release.

“In as much as it’s not the norm to see this type of behaviour, especially in a hospital, if anybody has any type of question or intuition of something happening, let someone know,” said Constable Wendy Drummond.

Sebert Grange of Toronto is charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, possession of cocaine and the proceeds of crime, as well as three counts of failure to comply.